BIOELECTROMAGNETIC MEDICINE - THE BOOK

...""In the decade to come, it is safe to predict, bioelectromagnetics will assume a therapeutic importance equal to, or greater than, that of pharmacology and surgery today. With proper interdisciplinary effort, significant inroads can be made in controlling the ravages of cancer, some forms of heart disease, arthritis, hormonal disorders, and neurological scourges such as Alzheimer's disease, spinal cord injury, and multiple sclerosis. This prediction is not pie-in-the-sky. Pilot studies and biological mechanisms already described in primordial terms, form a rational basis for such a statement. - J. Andrew L. Bassett, 1992"...

The table of contents of the book below, demonstrates the incredible depth and breath of Bioelectromagnetic Medicine. There is almost nothing that Biolelectromedicine can't do. From Wound to Spinal Cord healing; therapies for Pain (including Migraine and Multiple Sclerosis), Herniation, Insomnia, Neural, Depression, Epilepsy, Tinnitus, Macular Degeneration, Orthodontics, Orthopedics, Morbid Obesity, Dystonia, Incontinence, Inflammatory Diseases, Heart diseases to Cancer are only the tip of the iceberg....

Yet it's amazing on how the pharma cartel has been able to so heavily contain (suppress) these works and information. In spite of the vast benefits of Electomedicine most think it as a non issue. It just goes to show that regardless of efficacy and safety the profitable drugs still continue to take president, regardless of their known toxicity and in many cases ineffectiveness.

..."criticism that has hampered wider acceptance of bioelectromagnetic approaches is the inability to identify the mechanisms of action responsible for any benefits."... As if all the mechanisms of action of drugs are known - hardly the case. This is just a self serving excuse to block competing modalities and nothing more.

Over the last two decades, progress in MRI, PET, SQUID, and other sophisticated imaging techniques have revolutionized medical diagnosis. Similar advances in bioelectromagnetic therapy now promise to replace drugs and surgery for many disorders. The sudden surge of interest in this rapidly emerging modality has produced a plethora of spurious products making worthless claims that make it difficult to distinguish between true and false claims of efficacy. Bioelectromagnetic Medicine provides the tools and skills to make such evaluations and distinctions by:

- thoroughly explaining the biologic effects of magnetic and electromagnetic fields and the importance of dosimetry in determining clinical efficacy and safety

- presenting examples of cutting edge breakthroughs supported not only by rigid clinical trials but also by solid basic science research

- identifying promising new approaches based on research advances in the U.S., Europe, Eastern Europe, Russia, and Pacific Rim countries

The 86 internationally recognized contributors to Bioelectromagnetic Medicine have strived to insure that it will remain the gold standard in the field for many years. Its 50 chapters and thousands of references dealing with every aspect of this topic make it an essential guide for physicians and all health care professionals, biophysicists, physiologists, biochemists and other basic scientists, as well as students and anyone interested in non-invasive and authoritative alternative medicine approaches.

According to The Yellow Emperor's Canon of Internal Medicine, our oldest extant medical text, magnetic stones (lodestones) applied to acupuncture points were used to relieve pain and other complaints 40 centuries ago. The Vedas, religious scriptures of the Hindus also believed to be several thousand years old, similarly allude to the therapeutic powers of ashmana and siktavati (instruments of stone). The Greeks referred to these as lapus-vivas (live-stones) and Hippocrates purportedly used them to cure sterility. Egyptian physicians ascribed a variety of benefits to magnetic stones, as did early Buddhists. Tibetan monks still place bar magnets on the skull to improve the concentration and learning ability of novitiates in accordance with an age-old protocol.

In the early 1500's, the Swiss physician and alchemist Paracelsus became convinced that magnetism could restore the body's vitality and used magnets to promote healing, treat epilepsy, diarrhea and certain types of hemorrhage. Lodestones were ground up to make powders that could be applied as magnetic salves or ingested to provide energy and stop bleeding. Such practices became very popular but were debunked in 1600 by William Gilbert in De Magnete. By the middle 1700's, more powerful carbon-steel magnets had become available in Europe and there was heightened interest in their curative powers. Franz Anton Mesmer quickly became famous for his miraculous cures of everything from deafness to paralysis. In his 1775 report On the Medicinal Uses of the Magnet, he vividly described how he had restored health to a patient with uncontrollable seizures and numerous other nervous system complaints by feeding her iron filings and applying specially shaped magnets over affected organs. He later claimed that the healing force actually resided in his own "animal magnetism" (magnetisomum animalem). This was hailed as a new force analogous to Newton's gravity and people from all over Europe waited in long lines to be treated in his Paris salon. French physicians considered him to be a hoax and convinced Louis XVI to establish an unbiased commission consisting of Benjamin Franklin, Antoine Lavoisier and Dr. J. I Guillotin to investigate Mesmer's claims. They observed blindfolded patients who were exposed to very strong magnets and asked to describe their responses when fake objects were unknowingly substituted. The commission concluded in 1784 that magnetic healing was entirely due to the belief of the patient (placebo effect) and the power of suggestion (hypnosis). We still refer to hypnotism as "mesmerism".

Although Mesmer was thoroughly discredited, magnet therapy flourished in the U.S. and permanent magnet sales soared after the Civil War, particularly in the newly industrialized Western farm belts. Magnets, magnetic salves and liniments were dispensed by traveling magnetic healers and were readily available at food and grain stores. By the turn of the century, mail order catalogues offered magnetic soles for boots (profitable at 18 cents a pair) as well as magnetic rings, belts, caps, girdles and apparel that could cure anything from menstrual cramps to baldness and impotence. The king of magnetic healers was Dr. C. J. Thacher, whose Chicago's Magnetic Company in the 1920's promised "health without the use of medicine". His mail-order pamphlet explained that the energy responsible for life comes from the magnetic force of the sun, which is conducted through the rich iron content of the blood. Disease resulted when stressful lifestyles and environmental factors interfered with these healing forces. However, "magnetism properly applied will cure every curable disease no matter what the cause". The most efficient way to expedite this alleged ability of iron in the blood to transmit healing magnetic energy was by wearing magnetic clothing, and almost every conceivable garment was available. A complete costume, which promised "full and complete protection of all the vital organs of the body", contained 700 magnets!

It is not clear when electricity was first used to treat illness but electric catfish native to the Nile are portrayed in Egyptian murals several thousand years old suggesting medical applications. The Roman physician Scribonius Largus used a live torpedo fish to treat a patient with gout and wrote in 46 AD that headaches an d other pains could be cured by standing in shallow water near these electric fish. The powerful South American electric eel was introduced to Europe in 1750 and people flocked to be treated with its "natural electricity". Around the same time, the invention of the Leyden jar had dramatically demonstrated the ability of a stored electrical charge to produce muscle contractions and shocks. The publication of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in 1818 stimulated interest in electricity as the source of life. Since Galvani had shown that limbs or body parts would jump when electrical shocks were administered to animal and human cadavers it was believed that electricity could bring the dead to life. Various "reanimation" chairs and devices were constructed; some of which may possibly have acted as pacemakers or defibrillators in the rare cases that responded. An induction coil with sponge-tipped electrodes was used in 1853 to successfully treat abnormal heart rhythms and angina. Over the next few decades, as batteries were progressively improved and electricity from generating stations became available, all sorts of "medical coils" were developed with diverse curative claims.

By the early 1900's, electrotherapeutics was viewed as a legitimate medical specialty much like the growing fields of radiology and radium therapy and medical textbooks devoted chapters to the use of magnetism and electricity. Devices were devised to diagnose and treat anemia, hysteria, convulsions, insomnia, migraine, neuralgia, arthritis, fatigue and all types of pain. Some were based on the proposition that each organ or individual was "tuned" to a specific electromagnetic wave length whose application could energize or rejuvenate them. The most popular were the dynamiser and oscilloclast devised by Albert Abrams, a physician who was described by the American Medical Association in 1925 as the "dean of twentieth century charlatans". The dyanimizer was said to be so sensitive it could not only diagnose a disease from a drop of blood, photograph or handwriting sample but also pinpoint its location in the body. The oscilloclast was then simply set to the vibratory rate of the disease to be treated and the treatment was likened to shattering a wineglass by sound vibrations. A decade later, Wilhelm Reich claimed he had discovered a universal cosmic and biological energy called orgone that permeated the universe. He constructed an orgone accumulator box he claimed could collect and accumulate orgone obtained from the atmosphere. Sitting in the accumulator would not only restore and promote health and vitality but was an effective treatment for cancer. The FDA sued and convicted him for fraud and the court ordered his books and research burned and his equipment destroyed. Although Abrams died in prison in 1957, he still has fervent followers who believe in his theories and devices judging from various web sites. Other contraptions made similar extravagant but worthless claims so it is not surprising that all bioelectromagnetic approaches came to be regarded as fraudulent, A more detailed discussion of the above is available elsewhere.1 Unfortunately, this included legitimate research and it is not unlikely that in some instances, the baby was thrown out with the bath water. One example may be Harold Saxton Burr, whose theory of "L fields" of life showed great potential for the diagnosis of cancer and the treatment of different disorders. His research results using the comparatively crude devices that were available over a half century ago are now being intensively reinvestigated and confirmed with more sophisticated technology. In recent years, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positive emission tomography (PET scanning) have emerged as superior diagnostic aids. Cardiac pacemakers, defibrillators and other implantable electromedical devices have saved countless lives or eased the suffering of patients with Parkinson's disease and other debilitating disorders. The FDA has also approved specific electromagnetic devices to promote the healing of bone fractures that have failed to unite despite other interventions and this procedure has proven successful and safe in hundreds of thousands of patients over the past few decades. More recently, electromagnetic therapies for the treatment of urinary incontinence and sports injuries and treatment of liver and kidney tumors have also been approved. Other approaches for the treatment of osteoarthritis, pain, tinnitus and other indications have satisfied criteria for efficacy and safety that have led to their approval in European and other countries that may allow them to be available in the U.S. under the "globalization" and "harmonization" provisions of the 1997 FDA Modernization Act.

Why And How This Book Was Written

Permanent magnet and electromagnetic therapies are now riding the crest of a tidal wave of interest in "alternative" and "complementary" medicine. Unfortunately, charlatans, entrepreneurs and misguided zealots with worthless devices and unfounded claims still abound. It is essential to distinguish these from authentic approaches and products. As a result, we have tried to separate the wheat from the chaff in this book by restricting contributions to evidence based medicine supported by references in peer-reviewed publications and to provide the reader with tools and skills to evaluate the legitimacy of devices and claims. In addition to a lengthy history of quackery and fraud, another criticism that has hampered wider acceptance of bioelectromagnetic approaches is the inability to identify the mechanisms of action responsible for any benefits. We have therefore attempted to identify concepts and theories that attempt to explain the mechanisms responsible for mediating the diverse benefits of bioelectromagnetic therapies and in some instances, how they may relate to ancient concepts of subtle energies in the body that are also found in nature. How weak environmental electromagnetic energies as well as those generated internally can produce non thermal biologic effects is not clear since the absence of detectable heat exchange would appear to violate the laws of thermodynamics.

In addition, our current concept of how communication takes place in the body is at a chemical/molecular level as we visualize small peptide and other messengers fitting into specific receptor sites on cell walls much like keys opening certain locks. Such physical structural matching that could only occur on a random collision basis cannot explain the myriad instantaneous and automatic reactions such as those that occur in "fight or flight" responses7 to severe stress. As will be seen, there is an emerging paradigm of cellular communication at a physical/atomic level that may provide some answers and also provide insights into widely acknowledged but poorly understood phenomena such as the placebo effect, the power of prayer and a firm faith, telepathic communication, the benefits of acupuncture, homeopathy, therapeutic touch, various bodywork and massage therapies, Kirlian and other low level imaging procedures.

Another issue that has caused wariness about bioelectromagnetic therapies are safety concerns about possible increased risk of certain malignancies and birth defects resulting from proximity to high power lines, cell phones, microwave ovens and electric blankets. It is not surprising that electromagnetic fields, like many other therapies can be two-edged swords. For example, all the modalities we use to treat cancer, including radiation, chemotherapy and hormonal interventions can also cause cancer. Such effects may depend upon dosage, duration of exposure, genetic and other influences. It is not likely that any clear conclusion about adverse electromagnetic effects can be reached until more information has been obtained from long term studies that focus on these factors. For this reason, we have refrained from participating in this debate other than to devote a chapter on the importance of dosimetry and to emphasize that no such adverse effects have been observed or seem likely in the therapies presented in this book. Indeed, those that have been proposed and implemented by Demetrio Sodi Pallares and Björn Nordenström confirmed by others have shown stunning success in treating various malignancies. Many of the chapters in this book are based on presentations at the annual International Congress on Stress over the past decade or so and additional information on these events can be obtained at www.stress.org

We have also attempted in this book to trace the origin and development of various therapies, such as TENS and vagal nerve stimulation by pioneers in the field such as Norman Shealy, Donlin Long and Jacob Zabara. Kirk Jeffrey has contributed a similar chapter on the evolution of cardiac pacemakers. We have made a concerted effort to include prominent scientists whose research may not be well known in the U.S. When initially approached to serve as editor for this book, I explained that this was not my field of expertise and asked MarkoMarkov, a distinguished physicist to serve as co-editor. He is also much more familiar with relevant advances in Eastern Europe, Russia and I am grateful for his careful review of all chapters and for those he has attracted from these countries as well as his own contributions. I am also indebted to Russell Dekker for expediting this work by promising to publish it within six months of receipt of all approved manuscripts. Multi-authored books of this nature often take two years or more before they are available, during which time some of the material may be out of date or important advances have been made that could not be included. With regard to the latter, unlike many large publishing houses, Dekker is a family owned business and has been able to cut through the red tape by making space for late breaking developments that occurred well past the deadline for receipt of submissions, such as radiofrequency coblation nuceloplasty for disc disease. I would also like to thank all the authors for their cooperation in responding so promptly to various time urgent requests for revisions that were necessary to adhere to this very accelerated publication schedule.

The above is a brief summary of why this book is needed and how it was assembled. I believe it is particularly appropriate to conclude with the following quotation.

"In the decade to come, it is safe to predict, bioelectromagnetics will assume a therapeutic importance equal to, or greater than, that of pharmacology and surgery today. With proper interdisciplinary effort, significant inroads can be made in controlling the ravages of cancer, some forms of heart disease, arthritis, hormonal disorders, and neurological scourges such as Alzheimer?s disease, spinal cord injury, and multiple sclerosis. This prediction is not pie-in-the-sky. Pilot studies and biological mechanisms already described in primordial terms, form a rational basis for such a statement.? J. Andrew L. Bassett, 1992

Andy Bassett was one of the early advocates of the use of electromagnetic fields for uniting fractures that refused to heal. Unfortunately, he died before he could see that his prophecy would come true well ahead of schedule. In many respects, this book is a tribute to him and other pioneers like Bob Becker, Abe Liboff, Björn Nordenström and Ross Adey who recognized the vast potential of bioelectromagnetic medicine and have helped to put it on a solid scientific footing. I am particularly delighted that we were able to obtain contributions from most of these trailblazers.

Paul J. Rosch, M.D., F.A.C.P.

President

The American Institute of StressClinical Professor of Medicine and PsychiatryNew York Medical College

URL of this article:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/chris/2004/09/16/bioelectromagnetic_medicine_the_book.htm

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Readers' Comments

thankyou so much for the large effort you have put in to let everyone know the importance of bioelectromagnetic medicine.l have recently purchased a rife machine.today was the beginning of freedom for my husband,he treated himself today and his depression lifted,drugs dont do that.l imagine you really love this subject so do l.l am going to save up for your book.l think l need to sell four water filters.thankyou once again.annette stamford

Posted by: annette stamford on January 31, 2005 11:33 AM

As a manufacturer, importer and distributor of PEMF products I am thrilled to see the foundational work laid by this publication. On a very positive note, the University of Virginia has received a fully funded grant from the NIH to study rheumatoid arthritis with PEMFs. The purpose of this study is to determine whether a pulsed magnetic field (PMF) pad will improve symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in postmenopausal women. Their appears to be a welcome shift in the making. Thank you for this great contribution.

I am very interested in this site. GREAT ARTICALS! I will soon be applying for my patent on my own PEMF Device.
Any Advise? ie., how to deal with the FDA. Where on this site can I find more info on other EM devices?

Please send me your proper mailing address. I have some information that cannot be sent on the internet. It is refreshing to know someone else has been observing the same things I have observed since 1989.
My mailing address is:
Walton C. Koemel
1504 County Rd. 18
Lamesa, Texas 79331
U.S.A.

dear chris gupta. i am a general practitioner working and living in india. i am interested in buying pulsed electro magnetic equipment for the treatment of osteoarhtritis and related diseases. will you please give me addresses of manufacturers of theses machines. thanks.dr.jak khan . my email id is ahad23mpl@indiatimes.com

Studies have demonstrated that Vagus Nerve Stimulation is an effective therapy for medically refractory partial-onset seizures and depression, with an approximate long-term decrease in mean seizure frequency of 40-50, and a short-term decrease in mean seizure frequency of 20-30 in patients older than 12 years. And your experience demonstrates it.

Let people Know this: In the ancient temples of India, the idols were said to be very powerful and if any body touches the stone idols then they will become ashes.. The main reason is this: Each idol was connected very deep into the earth by means of a heavy copper wire (which usually touched some water source beneath) and the idol had very high voltage at many times of the day ! And from this high electricity, came a high magnetic field..

Hence it was said the idols cured all kinds of diseases..

In the present day the copper wire is not put very deep, but only to a few feet. Also the science of this kind of magnetic power of the idol is lost.. though some old priests still remember getting electric shocks when they touched the idols..

Seems like the age old idoltry of the temples are age old pemf mechanisms..!

Response:

Thanks for this, it sounds very plausible indeed. Do you have more info on this?

Chris Gupta

Posted by: Renga Iyengar on May 11, 2013 10:55 AM

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